With the continued growth of internet use by consumers, live online help services have become increasingly important. Website providers can incorporate online chat options into their website page(s) to offer an additional level of customer service to their users (e.g., in addition to the more traditional fillable information request forms, frequently asked questions pages, etc.). For example, many websites include a “click to chat” option, which a website user can use to engage in interactive chat with a live help agent. When the user clicks the “click to chat” button, a chat user interface is presented to the website user, and through the interface, the user is able to exchange chat messages with the help agent. As another example, websites can include embedded code to automatically display a message to the user that includes a “click to chat” button (e.g., after the user has been idle on a page for a predetermined amount of time). There are several additional methods to engage a website user, and facilitate live interaction between the user and an agent. Regardless of the engagement method used, the help agent can interact with the user through the chat to answer the website user's questions, help navigate the user through the website, suggest products, and/or the like.
While online chat has become an increasingly common method used by website owners to serve users, online chat may not scale well to address each individual user's needs. For example, if the live agent cannot successfully help a website user via the chat, the chat user interface may not include sufficient functions and/or features to successfully address the user's problem. Further, website providers currently face limitations imposed by the chat user interface itself. For example, when current chat interfaces are used, it is generally not possible to add any specific functionality to address the individual needs of the website providers or website user.
Additionally, once a user is engaged with a particular communication channel (e.g., text chat, voice, video, etc.), then it is usually difficult to switch among other communication modalities without starting a new engagement with the user. For example, once a user is engaged in an online chat session, a new communication channel (e.g., with separate user interfaces, equipment, etc.) is often required to change to a different communication modality (e.g., to set up a video chat instead of a standard text chat).